Shakugan no Shana III (Final) – 18

As the task of writing about Shana slowly becomes more difficult with less and less to talk about, I did think it was pretty interesting to get a good look at what’s going on behind the scenes for the bad guys for once. While there was still enough dialogue to write a small but fairly lengthy book, it did put some logic behind Yuuji’s plan.

Now that it’s become clear that Yuuji chose Misaki City not for personal reasons but objective ones, it’s starting to become really difficult to see the evil in his plan. I mean, in terms of bringing about change to a system that’s been in-motion for thousands of years, it’s going to take something radical to even get the ball rolling. And like I said last week, who’s to say that Yuuji and his plan to create a paradise for his kind is something that should be stopped? Especially after all the precautions he’s taken to guarantee the safety of any innocent bystanders who may be near the Seireiden during the ceremony.

Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a show if the bad guys were doing the right thing, right? Luckily, there’s still Shana and her ragtag group of insanely powerful Flame Haze who are ready and willing to face the task at hand. But the best thing about Shana leading the charge is her reason for stopping Yuuji. If I haven’t already made it clear, I don’t particularly agree with the Flame Haze trying to stop Yuuji on the grounds that they’re trying to protect the “balance” of the wold. In all honesty, it makes them sounds like the bad guys after watching how quickly they lost their resolve after Yuuji’s announcement about Xanadu.

But getting back on point, I love how Shana is pursuing Yuuji just to beat his face in. Sure there’s the whole aspect about how she’s madly in love with him and wants to prevent him from doing something that could possibly throw the universe into turmoil but when it boils down to it, Shana and her group are working together to help Shana beat Yuuji and make him submit to her!

That last paragraph might have gotten a little off topic but I think it’s just the excitement from the last five minutes just wearing off. With another battle between Shana and Yuuji about to get underway, I can’t imagine either of them winning right now. And even though I’d love for Shana to just defeat Yuuji to get things over with, it’d make more sense for Yuuji to win since it’d give Shana (and the anime) that much more of a reason to defeat him.

They’re just killing off characters left and right by now, which makes sense for a final season, but still, it’s kind of hard to get depressed over every single character death when most of them aren’t even happening with any build up or much emotional consequence.

If Yoshida kills herself next episode, I honestly can’t see myself caring because she’s been irrelevant to the show this entire season and whatever meaningful attachment I had to her has been steamrolled by the constant barrage of strategy and tactics and purely logical reasoning, with very little emotional substance.

I also didn’t like how Hecate was sacrificed. She was one of my favorite characters and I feel that she deserved a better ending. Still now I’m hoping that Shana looses and so that her sacrifice is not in vain.

this episode really started to make the flame haze feel like the bad guys to me. when the first of the four gods of earth showed up and started blasting everyone away I actually felt sorry for the poor little tomogara. :(

Its a little funny because I definitely couldn’t imagine myself thinking that when I first saw shana years ago. what an interesting ride its been :P

The three are absurdly powerful, and it seems for that reason alone they tried to steer clear from getting involved in fighting (with great power comes a great responsibility…)
I almost fell of the chair at the sight of West Shore’s “kyaa!-ing” and manners of a scared little girl… all the while massacring entire battalions of Tomogara :)))))
On a nother note: Alas, poor Hekate… it seems her whole life is always prelude to a villainous/heroic sacrifice. And then she gets reborn after few millenia to suffer the same fate again…

Pheles appears to give insight on the history of the Reiji Maigo since, you know, she and her human lover Johan MADE the darned thing. Essentially she goes on a rampage during the festival at Yuuji and Shana’s school, which does more than it’s fair share of collateral damage, which leads to the Silver manifesting, which THEN causes Marjorie to go absolutely nuts and start blasting everything and everyone, including Ogata. Wilhemina eventually calms here down though.

he’s not the only one :(
no really, she was an interesting and mysterious character that I wanted to know more about her. people just demonized her for interfering with shanaXyuuji(or kazumiXyuuji for others).

Both Yuuji and Shana are so stubborn.. No matter what relationship they have, if Shana feels something that Yuuji does is not right, she will stop him, and if Yuuji feels something bad has to be done to get a good outcome, he will stubbornly do it. In a sense, they really need each other.

And of course the Flame Haze still want to stop SnH Yuuji, he has only the best outcome in mind, but the way towards it is very slippery.
It’s not only the fact that the catastrophe will occur eventually if nothing is done, even in the new world, it’s also that he sacrifices a lot of Flame Haze and Tomogara to get his plan rolling, he becomes a mass murderer in a sense, just for the faint hope of a world where Tomogara and humans can live together.

Let’s not forget – creating a copy of the world doesn’t necessarily mean everything is going to be fine. There will be humans over there. SnH wants to create this world out of the wish of a bunch of Tomogara to get along with the humans, but that doesn’t include everyone. There are certainly Tomogara who would kill humans just for fun, even in the new world. That’s also one of the reasons why his plan is so uncertain.
It might as well end up as a total failure, even if the copy of the world can be done.

That said, I really liked the scene when Yuuji noticed that Shana is wearing her school uniform. She is not only fighting as a Flame Haze, but also as the person who made friends in school, who lived in the city, had fun with everyone and whom Yuuji fell in love with eventually. So beautiful…

Did anyone even consider that the Flame Haze might be the bad guys in this situation? I mean after watching this episode I was really convince, I mean even the Tomogara was asking what they were still doing there despite the fact that no humans would be harmed, and look at the 4 gods act! They are all so smug and actually sounds more evil than the Tomogara, heck I cant believe that I am saying this, but Im actually in Yuuji’s side since their objective seems to be FAR MORE BETTER than the flame hazes.

I mean I gotta give props to the guy, he thought really deeply ahead much more than the simple minded flame hazes do. For the flame haze, their job of balancing the existence is the only thing they think about, and would wage war or do anything to stop even a plan that could potentially get rid of all their problems at once. I’m starting to think that the flame haze actually wants the battle and war against Tomogara to continue in order to preserve their existence as Flame haze, since after all, most of them lost the will to fight when they heard Yuuji’s declaration of them all leaving this world to a new one. Also for Yuuji and Shana to truly have a happy ending together is for them to stop the need to battle, which is why I think Yuuji’s plan is pretty good, cuz it would put a stop to an eternity of fighting for Shana.

Hahaha, I think all drama related to Yoshida’s choice and if she’s going to die or not are completely moot. I think by this point we’ve all forgotten that Yuji’s technically “dead”. Pretty much EVERY tomogara, even the lowliest one can make a perfect resurrection of a human by making a torch. This torch is by all intents exactly the same thing until they run out of existence, so when Yoshida “dies” all Pheles has to do is turn her into a torch and stick some existence into her. Creating another Reiji Maigo is probably out of the question, but I’m sure a Crimson Lord of Phele’s calibur can supply one little torch with 80-90 years of existence, enough for her natural life span. Or she could stick around with one of the Flame Hazes and get resupplied.

It’s fun watching this with the perspective of “Yuji is the hero,” especially since I’m thinking that’s the view we’re supposed to have by now. In this perspective, the last few episodes are read quite differently.

The heroes struggle valiantly to retrieve the item they need more than anything to succeed, the body of the God of Creation who can help them create paradise. But their leader’s great love and former ally remains ignorant to the truth of things, refusing to listen no matter how he tries to explain. With the help of his new allies and countless sacrifices of both the great and the small, he manages to hold her off long enough to succeed. With this new power, he rallies his army and tries to tell his former allies the truth: That, as the vessel of a literal god, he can create paradise. For just a moment, he manages to break through to them. The other army routs and is defeated, and the day is saved!

…except his love interest and his former allies still fight against him, unwilling or unable to trust him. Though he drives them away, they remain able to fight. Still, they’ll have enough time to save the world. He goes home, preparing to finish the ritual that will save everything. He has allies, he has an army, and he has determination.

…except that his love interest has summoned three new villains. One of them simply walks through his army, not even bothering to acknowledge the hundreds he’s killing with his massive spells. One of them cries and sobs, her apparent fear and even more apparent power seeming almost like a mocking mask in the face of every failed attempt to stop her. And the last of them is a necromancer who has a literal zombie army. In the moment of his triumph, when he’s so close to solving every problem and creating a perfect world, they’ve come to try to steal that all away.

And now, next episode, a friend and someone who says she loves him is going to throw her life away for nothing. Pheles just doesn’t have the power level to take action alone here, and even if she can affect the Reiji Maigo as one of its cocreators, all she can do is shut off the power source for their paradise. It’s pointless and so, so tragically unnecessary.

Poor Yuji. He’s trying so hard to do the right thing, and why do the Flame Hazes ignore him? Because it all sounds too good to be true. Surely the God of Creation can’t create a new world of limitless energy! That’s a bit hard to believe, yeah. It’s not like he has a magical perpetual motion machi- Oh, wait, he has the Reiji Maigo! And the Sacred Throne exists entirely to fuel his creation rituals, too. That’s true… Well, the Denizens could eat people in this new world, which would cause the old world to destablize. Hmm. If only they had some kind of organization, full of the most powerful Denizens, who could police the new- Oh, wait, Bal Masque! That’s right, they can do that! The two remaining Trinity members are absurdly powerful, after all, to say nothing of Yuji himself. Well, the God of Creation does seem a little fishy. How do we know what his motivations are? Hmm. I mean, how could he benefit from creating this new wor- Oh, he literally exists to fulfill the heartfelt wishes of people when they grow strong enough? That’s literally all he wants to do? Oh. What the fuck, Flame Hazes? Why are you trying to stop him again?

Yuji is pretty unequivocally the good guy now. It’s been building for a while, but this episode gives you all of the pieces. He’s telling the truth; his plan will work if given a chance. The Flame Hazes are just too stubborn to listen.

I’m hoping for Yuuji to win, though probably not for the same reasons as other people here.

In fiction, I don’t really care about the “good guys” or the “bad guys,” good or evil, protagonist or antagonist. It’s the baser conflict that draws my attention, a conflict present in almost every story–order versus chaos. Or, to clarify, the struggle between those who seek to perpetuate the status quo versus those who would change–or break–it.

Yuuji wants to change the world. I can sympathize with that. What do the Flame Haze want? “To keep everything the way it is.”

Yeah.

The world sucks. For a lot of people, all the time. It’s like a battle between iconoclasts and plutocrats… and it’s human nature to vote for the underdog.

I for one am rooting for Yuji to win out because I’m a sucker for characters who want to change the status quo. I mean, isn’t that a trait of a shounen protagonist? If this season does take the route where the the tomogara become the “good guys”, then I will love this show more.

The flame hazes are clearly not being rational. What kind of excuse is ‘Well, if they go off to a universe by themselves and act badly for a few thousand years then they could be a threat, better kill them off now.’

It’d be like the English killing everyone who wanted to emigrate to america or australia, just in case they became a threat sometime in the future.

I´ve been rooting Yuji this whole while in the expetation of his plan to be for the greater good of all parties involved, otherwise he wouldn´t have allied himself with the God of Creation. I can see why the Flame Hazes are so sceptical, considerig the Snake of the Festival´s first plan millenias ago had many flaws and many humans has to be devoured to make it work, now it´s a different story thanks to Yuji and the Reiji Maigo. By the way, the Gods of the Erath are so awsome! I´ve never seen a Flame Haze manage to destroy an entire army by himself without even stopping to rest or even blink! No wonder they are feared and respected by friends and foes alike, they are walking encarnations of death. Also, I have the feeling Shana and her group don´t really want to stop Yuji, if that were the case they would´ve askef Sphie or Rebecca to come with them, more fire power the better, she did said she wanted to make both sides happy with the result.

Very interesting, it seems that a lot of people have switched to the side of seeing Bal Masque as the “good” and the flame hazes as the “bad”… I have to admit that at this point the line just isn’t clear anymore. I want to see Bal Masque succeed and have a Shana x Yuji happy ending but I don’t think/know if I’ll be able to have my cake and eat it too…

I am in agreement that Bal Masque are now offically the “good guys.” We have seen nothing but self-sacrifice by Bal Masque memebers: Fecor who died to keep the portal open, Decarabia who sacrificed himself to slow the FH army and Purson (the lion guy) who fought to prevent his fellows needless deaths. On the other hand we have overpowered and supremely arrogant Flame Hazes murdering thousands of lowbie denizens and laughing at it. I know in the end the Flame Hazes will eventually win but that does not make it right.

I’m impressed, I must say. Actually rarely do I encounter a blog that’s both educative and entertaining, and let me let you know, you have got hit the nail on the head. Your thought is excellent; the difficulty is one thing that not sufficient individuals are speaking intelligently about. I am very pleased that I stumbled throughout this in my seek for one thing relating to this.